Organization

This blog was written by Ashley Hock as a project for PADM 5449 at Cornell University. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Flock Not Clock.  By definition, all groups (including organizational members) are characterized by culture(s). 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Flock Not Clock. Members of your organization will share a large number of mental models, all of varying importance and centrality to the organization and its success. So what are the most important mental models—the pillars of your culture? Where do you focus first and foremost? Organizational success depends on sharing the right mental models, ones that are complexity-friendly and promote learning and adaptation.

One of the specific and practical things you can do to build a culture of mental models is to get the entire leadership team to assume another as leaders of learning. The CEO must also serve as a Chief Learning Officer (CLO). This dual role is required not just of CEOs but of any leader across the organization. If managers make learning a priority, others will see it as a priority, too. Effective leaders are skilled “lead learners” adroit at inculcating culture (facilitating shared understanding of key mental models).

"I am empowered to create unique, memorable and personal experiences for our guests." 

This post is adapted from Chapter 5 of Flock Not Clock.

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post was adapted from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. What are core values, and why does every company feel compelled to create and publicize them? The growing emphasis on organizational culture has likely fueled this trend: many CEOs equate culture with values.

This post is adapted from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock. 

This post is adapted from Chapter 3 of Flock Not Clock

This blog is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of Flock Not Clock.

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Flock Not Clock. There’s a reason that there are articles in Inc. titled “The 9 Worst Mission Statements of All Time” and “Why Most Mission Statements Suck So Bad.” 

If the right kind of Vision is so important, what explains companies that succeed with no [discernible] Vision? This is an important question we get asked a lot. Vision is a function of all organizations, whether formalized as companies, or informal groups of people such as protesters. Additionally,  "good"  Visions adhere to the vision-litmus-checks such that:

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Flock Not Clock. Many companies do in fact articulate a vision, though it often masquerades under different names like purpose or objective, and most frequently as mission.

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Flock Not Clock.

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Flock Not Clock.

“Systems Thinking” sounds like such a grandiose thing, requiring complicated tools designed to solve complicated problems. But what if there is more (or less) to it? What follows is a short blow-by-blow account of how I solved a small problem using DSRP (Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives).

July 20th, 2020 Dr. Laura Cabrera spoke today on the simple rules of systems leadership in partnership with Systemic Excellence Global. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of Flock Not Clock. Given that so many companies lack a vision statement and those that exist exhibit a bizarre range of forms and purposes, you may wonder why you need one. 

This post is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Flock Not Clock. 

You don’t get to choose whether your organization is a complex adaptive system. All organizations are complex adaptive systems because they are made up of individuals (agents) adapting to their environment. The behavior of an organization—an emergent